Current Affairs : 23rd January 2014

T. Nanda Kumar to be appointed NDDB Chairman : Nanda Kumar will be the new Chairman of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), replacing Amrita Patel who has been holding the post since 1998. Nanda Kumar, currently Member of the National Disaster Management Authority, is slated to take over from March 1 “His name has been cleared by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister. Patel is currently on extension and will remain as Chairman till February 28.

RBI’s ‘bold’ report may hit govt block : A central bank panel’s report on a new monetary policy regime has been termed as bold but is unlikely to get the backing of the finance ministry, experts and officials say.
The panel headed by Urijit Patel, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, in its report released on Tuesday said the target should be to bring CPI inflation down to 8% in 12 months and to 6% over 24 months before adopting a 4% target.The panel said since India is exposed to external shocks, the 4% target should have a band of 2% around it.

Sensex makes new record at 21,374 : The Indian stock market made another record high today, but investors and experts seem to be not at all enthused about the same. The Sensex closed the day up 35.99 points higher at 21,373.66, its fresh lifetime closing high. The broader NSE index closed up 0.11%, up 6.7 points, at 6,345.65, just short of its record high of 6,363.90 hit on December 9, 2013.

Pranab gives 7 more days to discuss Telangana: President Pranab Mukherjee has given Andhra Pradesh Legislature time till January 30 to express its views on the AP Reorganisation Bill 2013.Ending suspense over the extension and giving relief to the Seemandhra legislators in general and Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy’s camp in particular, Speaker Nadendla Manohar announced in the Assembly.The President in his letter said: “In pursuance of the proviso to Article 3 of the Constitution of India and after considering the need for expeditious introduction of the Bill in Parliament, In hereby allow a further period till the thirtieth day of January 2014 to the Legislature of the State of Andhra Pradesh for expressing its views on “The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill, 2013.”

Mahesh Bhupathi launched IPTL in Melbourne : Tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi launched the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) in Melbourne, Australia on 21 January 2014. He also announced the name of the teams during the launch of IPTL. Mahesh Bhupati linked arms with German tennis legend Boris Becker, and American Justin Gimelstob, a former pro and member of the ATP board to launch the IPL styles IPTL.The IPTL is expected to start in Asia from 1 December 2014 to 20 December 2014 for which the auction of players will be held in UAE on 2 March 2014. Each team is expected to field 10 players.

RBI recent move to withdraw all currency notes : RBI advisory to withdraw all currency notes, including Rs 500 and Rs 1000, issued before 2005.The Reserve Bank of India decided to withdraw all currency notes issued prior to 2005, including Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations, after March 31 in a move apparently aimed at curbing black money and fake currencies.”After March 31, 2014, it (RBI) will completely withdraw from circulation all bank notes issued prior to 2005. From April 1, 2014, the public will be required to approach banks for exchanging these notes,” the RBI said in a statement.

Sania-Tecau sail into Australian Open semis : India’s Sania Mirza and her Romanian partner Horia Tecau stormed into the semifinals of the mixed doubles event at the Australian Open with straight sets victory over Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Julia Georges on Thursday. Sixth seed Sania and Tecau hardly broke a sweat to prevail over the unseeded Aisam-Julia combination 6-3, 6-4 in their quarterfinal clash that lasted just 63 minutes.

Scientists detect water on dwarf planet : Astronomers have for the first time detected water vapour on a dwarf planet located in the main asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.This is the first time water vapour has been unequivocally detected on Ceres or any other object in the asteroid belt and provides proof that Ceres has an icy surface and an atmosphere,” said Michael Kuppers of ESA in Spain, lead author of a paper published in the journal Nature.Ceres is roughly 950 kilometres in diameter. When it was first was spotted in 1801, astronomers thought it was a planet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Later, other cosmic bodies with similar orbits were found, marking the discovery of our solar system’s main belt of asteroids.

Sehwag, Gambhir not in World T20 probables list : Gautam Gambhir, statemate Virender Sehwag and Pathan brothers Yusuf and Irfan are the notable omissions in India’s 30-member list of probables for the upcoming World T20 in March and April this year. Gambhir, who is India’s highest scorer in T20 Internationals with 932 runs from 37 games at a strike rate of 119.02, played a big role in India’s World T20 title win back in 2007 but has of late dropped off the selection radar. Sehwag, meanwhile, looked totally off-colour in domestic cricket this season and his exclusion was, to an extent, expected.